


Does She Mean, Like, Pizza?

by dayone



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: 5 + 1 Fic, Coming Out, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Multi, OMC is reggie’s brother, Rated T for minor swearing, Reggie Has A Brother, Reggie Peters Loves Pizza, and this is a fic about that love, it's nothing seriously triggering but still, minor/background relationships are very minor, please read the warnings in the authors note
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:42:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28440345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dayone/pseuds/dayone
Summary: “Why couldn't they have made mine into a pizzeria or something?” – Reggie Peters, 1x02 “Bright”“I wish I had a puppy! A hamster? Pizza?” – Reggie Peters, 1x02 “Bright”“Wait, so, when she says “deep dish”, is she talking about, like, pizza or...?"  - Reggie Peters, 1x03 “Flying Solo”“Let’s not forget we have somewhere else we can play and eat pizza.” – Reggie Peters, 1x06 “Finally Free”ORA 5 + 1 fic detailing the origins of Reggie’s love of pizza.
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters, Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Bobby | Trevor Wilson & Reggie Peters, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson, Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters & Alex Mercer, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Reggie Peters & Alex Mercer, Reggie Peters & Alex Mercer & Luke Patterson & Bobby | Trevor Wilson, Reggie Peters & Luke Patterson, Reggie Peters & Ray Molina, Reggie Peters & Reggie Peters's Parents (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 84





	Does She Mean, Like, Pizza?

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was 100% inspired by this post by @willexx on tumblr (thank you for letting me use this!): https://willexx.tumblr.com/post/636499682998304768/during-episode-1x02-reggie-discusses-how-he-wishes
> 
> TWs:  
> overall - discussion and onscreen eating of food  
> section 3 - discussion of coming out to homophobic parents and offscreen Catholic-based homophobia, something adjacent to a panic attack but not quite that severe  
> section 4 - discussion of missing meals/teenagers being dumb about what counts as a meal  
> (you can easily skip the noted sections if there's a trigger, they're all independent of each other)

1 --

Despite the perceptions Reggie’s friends have, his parents weren’t always that bad. There was a time growing up when they were the type of parents any kid could’ve asked for.

“And then we learned about evaportat – evaporation, where the water goes back to the sky!” Reggie raises his hands, bringing his older brother’s hand up with his left.

“Yeah?” Charlie prompts. “How about when we get home, we put a little water in a bottlecap by the window and you can see it happen?” Reggie cheers his agreement and starts pulling Charlie down the sidewalk. “Calm down, Reg, the water will still be there when we get home.”

Reggie slows down slightly, content to walk beside his brother until they get home. They make it home fairly quickly, Reggie only getting distracted by a wildflower on the side of the sidewalk that he insisted on picking for their mom. When they get home, Charlie reaches up to the front door and lets them both in.

“Charlie? Reggie? That you?” Reggie hears his mom call from the kitchen, quickly followed by her footsteps coming down the hall.

“Hi, mom!” The boys chorus back to her as she rounds the corner.

Reggie holds out the wildflower to her, “Here, it’s pretty just like you!”

“Is this for me?” She asks. When Reggie nods, she continues, taking the flower from him, “Why thank you Reggie, it’s gorgeous. How was school, boys?” Reggie hums in acknowledgment as he crouches down to pull the Velcro on his shoes. He sees Charlie rip open his backpack beside him and hand a small package of paper to their mom.

“I got my multiplication test back today!” Charlie says with a bright smile. His mom flips over the paper and Reggie sees a big colourful sticker at the top before it’s fully turned around.

“A 100, oh Charlie how wonderful!” Their mom coos, wrapping Charlie in a hug. “I’m so proud of you, I know how hard you worked for that.” She pulls away then continues, “You know, I was going to make a casserole tonight, but how about we order pizza instead, boys?”

Charlie and Reggie both cheer as they follow their mother into the living room. First though, they make a pit stop in the kitchen to pin the test up on the fridge with a magnet, the circled bright red 100 stark against the white of the paper and fridge. They settle down in the living room when Reggie’s mom turns to him and asks what he got up to today.

“We learned about evaporation! Water just disappears!” Reggie exclaims.

“Do you still want to do that experiment, Reg?” Charlie asks, already getting up. Reggie nods enthusiastically, with a massive grin on his face – exposing his missing front teeth.

Later that evening, all four Peters sat around the table with a large pepperoni pizza between them. Laughter filled the air and four little bottlecaps of water sat on the windowsill. Reggie was happy.

2 --

Reggie is practically bouncing in his booster seat – scratch that, he actually is bouncing. Luke Patterson, who was in his class for the first time this year, had invited him to his birthday party. They only met on the first day of school but, since their last names are so close, they seem to have spent every second in class talking to each other.

His mom pulls the car into the Patterson’s driveway and Reggie jumps out. He’s halfway to the door when his mom calls him back to get Luke’s gift. Reggie runs back to grab it and goes to run back again before his mom tells him to walk with her. Together they walk up to the front door and Reggie reaches up to ring the doorbell, and a woman with long brown hair answers the door.

“Hello, you’re here for Luke’s party?” At Reggie’s enthusiastic nod, she continues, “And what’s your name?”

Just as she finishes her question, a small boy comes barreling down the hallway. Reggie hears his name being yelled before Luke slams into him, almost knocking them both to the ground.

“C’mon, Reg, everyone’s in the living room, let’s go!” Luke says, grabbing his hand and pulling him into the house.

Reggie looks over his shoulder and waves, “Bye, mom!”. She waves back while talking to Luke’s mom.

Luke turns a corner, and they enter the living room that already has most of the guests there. Reggie can immediately see Jennifer and Sarah sitting in the corner of the couch talking with Mikey who was on the floor, and then Luke’s best friends Alex and Bobby sitting in the chairs a little further into the room. Unsurprisingly, Luke pulls him over to the boys.

“Alex, Bobby, this is Reggie, he’s my friend from class since you’re in Ms. R’s class this year and left me all alone with Mr. K.”

“We didn’t leave you _all_ alone!” Bobby says.

“And it’s not our fault!” Alex adds, before turning to Reggie. “Hi Reggie, I’m Alex.”

Bobby turns and says, “And I’m Bobby, I like your shirt.”

Reggie looks down to see his _Back to the Future_ shirt he was wearing then answers brightly, “Thanks!”

Mrs. Patterson then enters the room, putting Reggie’s gift down with the rest, and told them it was time for party games.

Reggie stuck with the three boys for the entire afternoon. He was in stitches with Luke and Alex when Bobby pinned the tail on the TV instead of the donkey poster at the other end of the room, and immediately paired up with them when Mrs. Patterson – “call me Emily, honey” – had announced it was time for charades.

The pizza arrived in the evening and Reggie ate it sitting crossed legged on the floor surrounded by three new friends and having the time of his life.

3 --

Through elementary school and middle school, the boys stay thick as thieves, even starting a band in grade 8 that went unnamed until midway through grade 9. Bobby’s parents were kind enough to let them use their garage as a rehearsal space – in actual support or just to get them out of the house, the boys didn’t know. Throughout this time as well, Reggie’s dad got laid off and his idealistic childhood came crashing down along with the family’s savings. His parents started arguing more, first about money, then about each other, then about Reggie and Charlie. As it stands now, a few years down the line, Charlie moved out to go to college and Reggie spends more time in the garage than in his own house.

Currently, Reggie is sitting on the couch in the garage, fiddling with the tuning keys of his bass while the body lays on the couch. It’s a few hours after band practice and Bobby had just left to make popcorn in the house.

The studio doors slam open and Reggie jumps at the noise, just barely catching his bass before it crashes to the ground. He looks up to see Alex just inside the doors harshly sucking in air with tear tracks running down his face. Now that Reggie is paying attention, he can hear the difference in Alex’s breathing, the clear signs of hyperventilation that Reggie initially attributed to his hasty entrance.

“Jesus, Alex, what happened?” Reggie says, getting up to try and comfort his obviously distressed friend.

“I – I … I don’t know what came over me. I, I –“ Alex stammers out, his breathing picking up pace.

“Okay, that’s okay, how about we go sit down?” At Alex’s slight nod, Reggie guides him over to the couch, moving his bass off the couch and into its normal position in the process. “Do you want me to count your breathing or distract you? You can use the tap system if you want.” The tap system was a little communication method the four of them had set up a few years ago after Alex had a particularly bad panic attack where he couldn’t speak. One of the three of them ask a two-option question, and Alex taps once for the first option or twice for the second. Alex taps Reggie’s leg twice.

“Okay that’s good. Did I tell you about the bulldog I saw at the beach the other day?” Reggie starts and then continues without waiting for an answer. “He had these little blue goggles on and a life jacket – because bulldogs can’t float because they’re too dense – and he couldn’t quite walk right, so he kept losing his balance and falling over! He was almost all white, with these brown spots on his ears and a few on his back, I think his name was Winston? I’m not sure if his parents were yelling at the dog or the kid with him though. He loved fetch too, the kid kept throwing the ball into the surf, which explains the goggles and life jacket, he was just so cute!” Alex’s breathing had evened out a little through the story, and Bobby comes in with a bowl of popcorn just as Reggie finishes.

Bobby walks into the room, places the popcorn on the table, and sits on the other side of Alex, clearly sensing the things-are-not-okay-right-now vibe. He looks over to Reggie with a questioning look on his face and Reggie responds with a small shrug and raised eyebrows.

“Hey, Lex, I wasn’t expecting you to be here tonight, is everything alright?” Bobby says.

Alex opens his mouth to respond but he chokes a bit on his words and ends up shutting his mouth while shaking his head.

“That’s alright, man. Do you want to talk about it?” Bobby continues, and Alex answers by nodding. “Okay, do you want me to grab Luke so we’re all together?” Another nod. “Sweet, I’m gonna go call him now, is that good?” After Alex nods a third time, Bobby gets up to go back into the house to the phone. “I’ll be right back.”

A second wave of whatever Alex is going through hits, his shoulders begin to shake, breathing picks up, and his eyes fill with tears again. Reggie calls Alex’s name softly and opens his arms in a silent invitation, which Alex immediately accepts. Reggie shifts them around until they’re both half sitting, half laying down on the couch, with Alex’s face resting on his chest and his arms wrapped around Alex. Reggie starts carding his hand through Alex’s hair hoping it soothes Alex like normal.

When Bobby returns, they’re still in that position and Reggie’s hand is still in Alex’s hair. Alex’s breathing has returned to semi-normal, only hitching occasionally, but his face is still red and covered in tear tracks.

“Luke says he’ll be here in 15.” Bobby says while lifting their feet and settling beneath them. Even though Bobby said 15 minutes, Reggie knows it’ll be closer to 10 – Luke will ride his bike as fast as he can over here if he knows one of them is in trouble. Reggie resumes his hand motions and Bobby begins rubbing his hand up and down Alex’s calf.

After a few minutes of silence, Alex mumbles something into Reggie’s chest.

“What was that Alex? We didn’t quite catch that.” Bobby says.

Alex lifts his head slightly and repeats, “I came out to my parents tonight.” A sense of dread washes over Reggie. Alex was one of the two bandmates with good parents, despite them being on the more extreme end of Catholicism. Reggie hugs Alex a little tighter, and Bobby rearranges himself, so he finally properly joins the cuddle pile. It’s difficult fitting three 16-year-old boys horizontally on the same couch but they’ve had enough practice that they make it work. 

Reggie loses track of time but soon enough Luke is bursting through the door in a very similar fashion to Alex earlier that night.

“What did I miss?” Luke pants out. “Is everyone alright?”

“That depends on your definition of alright?” Reggie says from the bottom of the pile.

“I came out to my parents.” Alex adds. Luke is crouched beside them in seconds.

“Are you okay? How did they react? Well, not good considering you’re here. Did they kick you out? Do you need a place to stay?” Luke rapid fires.

“Luke, Jesus, take a breath, you’re overwhelming the guy.” Bobby says.

“It’s okay.” Alex intervenes. “I’m okay now, and you’re right, they didn’t react well. They didn’t quite kick me out but they’re definitely not okay with it. I don’t know why I thought they would be really, I just thought their love for me would overshadow what they believe.” Alex lets out a humorless chuckle. “But I should’ve known with how they spoke about the AIDS crisis.”

“Hey, no, no thinking like that.” Bobby interjects before Alex can spiral too far. “It’s not your fault you trusted them to support you as parents, it was theirs for letting you down. Okay?”

“Okay.” Alex responds.

“Good. Now, have either of you had dinner yet? Because me and Reg haven’t.” When Alex and Luke both shake their heads, Bobby continues. “Okay, I don’t think mom made enough for two extra plates and, frankly, I think we’re overdue for a pizza and movie night out here. How does that sound?” Luke and Reggie voice their affirmative.

“Can we watch _My Cousin Vinny_?” Alex asks quietly. When all the boys agree – as if they could disagree with Alex after everything that happened today – a small smile graces Alex’s face, the first Reggie has seen since he burst through the door.

As the final few minutes of the movie play out on the screen, all four of them are piled on the couch with two empty boxes of pizza on the coffee table in front of them. The painful events of the day are not quite forgotten but they’re definitely a distant thought.

4 --

Junior year ends and senior year picks up along with the fights between Luke and his parents. Post-secondary applications had opened two months ago, and the deadline is drawing nearer every day. The band’s getting closer and closer to their big break, they can feel it, but unfortunately, that belief doesn’t transfer to Emily and Mitch Patterson.

“I just don’t understand how they don’t get it!” Luke says from the space under the loft and raising his arms in frustration to Reggie, who’s on the couch. “They always said they’d support me, but all of a sudden I don’t want to go to college and everything comes crashing down?”

Reggie hums, trying to think of something that might comfort his friend. “You could get them to come to our gig next weekend? It’s a pretty big venue and we’ve got some consistent fans now, that might help them see this is a feasible path.”

Luke collapses on the couch beside Reggie with a huff. “I could, but I invited them to all of our early gigs and they didn’t come to anything besides the school talent show in sophomore year. I just don’t know how a degree would help a rock band. It just seems like a distraction.” Luke laughs a little to himself, obviously seeing the same irony Reggie does in that statement.

“Maybe do a music degree? It might be helpful, especially if you have to go for something.” Reggie suggests. He’s just trying to diffuse the situation; he already basically lives here, and it’d be a pity for Luke if he had to join him.

“Yeah, and spend hours on audition pieces when I could be spending hours on band practice? No thanks. Also, what the hell am I gonna do with a music degree? I don’t think Bach or Beethoven will help with rock.” Reggie thinks sampling from other genres might be pretty cool, but like hell, he’s going to say that to Luke right now. Reggie knows there’s no helping this cause right now, there’s no way to fix years worth of parental problems in an evening, so instead he does what he does best – distract.

“You know, I’m pretty hungry and Bobby and his parents are with his grandparents, you want to order pizza and play Mario Kart? I brought my SNES over here a month ago.”

“Honestly, Reg? That sounds amazing.” Luke flops to the left, his head landing in Reggie’s lap and his feet kicking over the other arm of the couch. His beanie falls off his head a little and Reggie pulls it all the way off so he can run his fingers through Luke’s hair.

“How much should we order? I missed lunch so I’m good with ordering a bunch.” In reality, they had made quite a bit of money from their last gig, so between the both of them, they could definitely afford for Luke to eat his feelings tonight. This statement, however, had the opposite effect on Luke. He sits up quickly, dislodging Reggie’s hand, and turns to Reggie with a concerned look on his face.

“What do you mean you missed lunch? I thought we stocked protein bars in here for the explicit purpose of preventing you from skipping lunch?” That’s a half-truth and they both know it. Initially, that is why they were stocked – Reggie had spent one too many weekends in the garage while Bobby either wasn’t there or didn’t know and there was no food in the studio. As time passed, however, the bars became communal band snacks as it was a lot less disruptive to grab a bar quick than to trek into the Wilson household if someone got hungry during band practice.

“We ran out of bars last week. Bobby’s mom said she’d pick up more when they got back on Sunday. Anyway, pizza?” Luke sighs but doesn’t fight the lunch issue any longer.

“Only if we get cheesy garlic bread too.” Luke says with a bit of a smile on his face.

“What type of pizza night would it be if we didn’t?” Reggie shoots back.

Later that night, both boys were fighting yawns while trying to stay awake long enough to get a definitive Mario Kart winner. If they were getting the controllers a little too greasy and scattering the pizza boxes around the studio instead of keeping them around the table, well Reggie wasn’t complaining tonight.

5 --

All four members of Sunset Curve exit the venue, walking calmly down the street until they turn the corner. As soon as they know they’re out of view of the building, they all break out into whoops and cheers, jumping around, and grabbing onto each other.

“I can’t believe we booked the Orpheum, holy shit!” Luke yells in their faces. The remaining three yell incomprehensibly back at him.

Once they all calm down, Bobby says, “I can’t believe we got it.”

“It only took us, what? Two years?” Reggie asks.

“And every single favour we’ve ever had.” Alex adds.

“But we did it, boys, we finally made it.” Luke says, slapping each one of them in the chest with a massive smile on his face.

“How about we take the day off?” Bobby proposes. “We’re right by the beach, there’s months until this gig, and frankly, I think we all deserve to celebrate a little.” Reggie and Alex both voice their approval, while Luke looks slightly apprehensive.

“C’mon Luke, the gig isn’t ‘til July, and Bobby’s right – we do deserve to celebrate for a bit, we’ve been rehearsing nonstop for at least two months now.” Alex says, resting his hand on Luke’s shoulder.

Luke wavers for a moment before his smile breaks through and he agrees. They take off down the street, bumping their shoulders together occasionally and sharing massive grins.

They’re just passing by the pier when Reggie smells the telltale grease of a pizzeria and realizes, since their meeting at the Orpheum was at noon, none of them have had lunch yet.

“Hey, do you guys want to get pizza? We could bring a box down to the beach.” Reggie says.

Luke grabs Reggie’s face with a hand on either side. “Reggie, that is the best idea I have ever heard.” He says, completely seriously.

Fifteen minutes later, Bobby’s carrying a probably overpriced pizza while they all settle into the sand farther down the beach. They each grab a slice and Luke holds his up like one would a drink during a toast.

“To Sunset Curve, boys, we’re gonna be legends!” He says.

“To Sunset Curve!” The three cheer back, toasting their slices against Luke’s.

They spend the rest of the day laughing and joking around. Reggie knows they’re all going to be finding sand in their shoes for weeks after this, but he can’t find it in himself to care. As the sun starts to set, they all get up and throw out the pizza box at the top of the beach. The trek home is a little long but none of them care.

They’re gonna be legends.

+1 --

They, in fact, were not going to be legends. Well, most of them wouldn’t be. Instead, they find themselves 25 years in the future, with no Bobby and no Sunset Curve. There were some good things about the future though, they have a new name, a crazy talented lead singer with the voice of an angel, and they finally got to play the Orpheum – even if they did have to go through hell to do it.

Ever since Julie saved them from Caleb’s stamps, they’ve found the boys are more like lifers. They can now sleep and eat, although they haven’t tested if they have to like lifers, but they can also still teleport and pass through doors. Another ability that came with this half-lifer status is that they can choose to make themselves visible to lifers without playing music with Julie. This particular ability came in useful when Julie decided to tell Ray about them; it’s a lot easier to explain ghosts when they can just appear right in front of your face.

As it stands now, Ray has all but adopted the three of them. Reggie shied away from Ray at the beginning, unable to handle the potential rejection he had grown to expect from parental figures, but it’s been over a month and the other shoe hasn’t dropped yet. In fact, the exact opposite had happened, Ray not only had accepted Reggie’s near-constant presence around him, but he had started including him in what he was doing. Reggie has learned more about photography than he ever knew possible and was even told the super-secret Molina family recipe for hot chocolate.

The boys have slowly started to be incorporated into Molina family traditions and tonight was time for another: monthly Friday pizza nights. They’ve been outsiders to this tradition before, losing Julie for the night back before they could eat, but now that they could, there was no way they would miss it.

Currently, they’re all in the living room waiting for the pizza to arrive. Alex is in the middle of a story about one of Sunset Curve’s first times busking on the pier. Luke is laughing along with it, clearly forgetting about the fact that this story ends with him tripping over his guitar case and almost ending up in the water.

“Wait, Alex, I forgot to ask, how’s your ghost boyfriend doing?” Luke abruptly says, interrupting Alex mid-sentence, seemingly remembering the end to this story if the pink dusting his cheeks is any indication.

Alex’s reaction to his question is instantaneous – his ears heat up and he starts fiddling with the strap of his fanny pack. He just barely manages to spit out a, “He’s not my – okay,” before turning beet red. Just then, the doorbell rings and everyone starts getting up – Ray to get the pizza and the rest to go to the dining table.

“Saved by the bell.” Reggie says to Alex on his way past, jostling Alex slightly with his elbow.

“You could say that, yeah” Alex responds with a slight laugh.

“Seriously though,” Julie chimes in. “You should invite him to band practice again, it was a lot of fun when he was here.”

“You can’t even see him!” Alex says. Everyone was a little disappointed when they found that out. Julie and Willie were looking forward to meeting each other, but it was quickly obvious that Julie’s ghost-seeing abilities only applied to the former members of Sunset Curve.

“Still, it was fun to have him around. Also, I think I think the day you brought him over was the best you’ve ever played in rehearsal.” Julie says with a wink and then walks away to the table.

“That wasn’t – okay.” Alex says defeatedly, turning to Reggie.

“You really did kill it that day, man.”

They both turn back to the table just in time to see Luke pull out Julie’s chair for her. Both Alex and Reggie look at each other, exchanging knowing glances.

“So, we all saw that, yeah?” Carlos loudly whispers to Reggie and Alex, looking directly at Luke and Julie who are holding eye contact that’s just a little too long to be subtle.

“Yeah we did, little buddy. But c’mon, let’s go have some pizza.” Reggie says, ruffing Carlos’s hair, just as Ray comes back with the boxes.

As the six of them sit down around the dining room table, Reggie is reminded of the family pizza nights he would have as a kid, with everyone crowded around a table and laughter filling the air. Except now instead of a large pepperoni pizza in the middle, there were two pizzas – a vegetarian and Hawaiian – and a box of wings. There was also a sad-looking salad that Reggie was 75% sure Ray only threw together in case Tía Victoria came by. The laughter and sense of _yes this is exactly where you’re supposed to be_ feeling of home was the exact same though.

Alex bumps Reggie’s shoulder, knocking him out of the slight daze he had fallen into, and Reggie turns to him and smiles. It had taken a slightly horrific death, twenty-five years, and a brush with another second death, but Reggie had finally found his way back home.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! if there are any triggers i missed, please let me know. 
> 
> come yell at me on tumblr @reversedscene, i need more people to talk about this show with


End file.
